


Conflict of Interest (Excerpt)

by briannetoma



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Afterparty, Always Active Voice, Escape, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hotel Sex, Illium (Mass Effect), Passion, Rescue, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 15:49:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15489291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briannetoma/pseuds/briannetoma
Summary: Excerpt from Shepard's Grace, chapter 10.





	Conflict of Interest (Excerpt)

The strictest, most regulated world, and Liara gets them through no problem. They had changed transport outside Milgrom and took her shuttle to an ExSolar private transport ship, where she docked in their hangar bay. Someone at the security checkpoint entering the planet let them through, but Shepard was stuck on blackmail while Illusive Man thought Liara bribed them. If she knows her biotic princess, it was blackmail. Liara hired a taxi soon after and half of the ride into the asari metropolis was spent arguing over her methods, and she was a good sport up until the argument circled around a third time, and she threatened them to eject the back seat. They knew that was not a safety feature for this model but they shut up regardless.

Liara parks the car in a resort called the Zaliokuz Sky Hotel and can’t get out of her seat fast enough. She breathes in her homeworld, deep and slow.

Shepard steps out; this is the tallest atmos-scraper she’s been to. Her own little joke inside her head: atmos is Latin for vapor, so instead of skyscraper, it’s really vaporscraper. She doesn’t tell anyone; just a bad joke she loves to hear for herself. It helps ease the tension in the air as they follow Liara inside and she checks them into a matriarchal suite, located at the topmost level.

“This is the shack?” Shepard says.

“Criminals run from Illium to get away from authority,” Liara says, “so the best place to be is where no one would think to look for you.”

The one-hundred and sixty-fifth floor has one long hallway, and only one door. They have the place to themselves.

“How many Cerberus terrorists do you know on Illium?” Liara adds and Shepard blinks once. “Precisely my point.”

Liara unlocks the door and lets them through. Shepard first notices the panels of windows with a view of the city. A blue ring glows underneath the king bed on a dais, fitted with white sheets. A long sofa divides the room between sleeping and dressing. It’s firm and a faded slate, facing the vanity and bathroom. The bathroom, rectangular, rests adjacent on the other wall of the vanity, and has a second access to the dining and full kitchen. Like a naval base she once trained on, there’s a wet side—shower, jacuzzi, toilet stall—and a dry side—handwashing station, bench, and small locker with a laundry chute. Kitchen takes a quarter of the entire room while the bedroom takes half. It has a full fridge and cabinet set with plenty counter space and an island that duals as a bar. She notes the controls along the wall to activate a sound shield, which manufacturers claimed was to stop smells and waking up sleeping guests. More like a gossip curtain for vacationers who spend too much time around each other.

The view of any place she’s been to has always been spectacular, but this one has particularly taken her back. The second of the tallest buildings mirrors the hotel; between them, an active fountain spraying varying designs through dancing holographs. She notes a large coast below the horizon line, and it reflects the late moon.

“I was saving this room for such an occasion,” Liara says, “though I had hoped no one had to use it. It is yours for the night.”

“Thank you,” Shepard exhales, gawking through the kitchen window.

“Shepard,” she pauses, looking for Illusive Man, who’s checking the drawers in the vanity. He walks into the bedroom. She continues, lowering her voice, “I know it’s none of my business.”

“It’s okay,” she matches the volume. “You’ve earned an explanation.”

“No, Shepard. I don’t need you to explain anything. I’m giving you this because we are friends.” She leans on the island. “But as your friend, I want you to know that I care a great deal, and don’t want to see you hurt. I’m here for whatever you need.”

“I appreciate it but what about the Shadow Broker?”

“I’ll find him,” she says. Her mouth stiffens. She takes Shepard’s hand with both of hers and gently squeezes.“I’ll be down a level. No need to knock, just don’t run up behind me when I’m working.”

“I promise I won’t scare the biotics outta ya.” Shepard smiles.

“Well. We all need some rest so—” Liara knocks on the drawer near the bathroom door. “—There’s a gun in here,” she points, “there, in the pistachio bowl, and in the shower. Good night, Shepard.”

“Good night, Dr. T’Soni,” Illusive Man inspects the abstract painting, a steel blue and bright red mix of fluid textures. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Liara glares. “You too.” And the door shuts behind her.

Silence lies heavy, as crushing as deep space, smothering, and making every fresh thought thunder between her ears. Every memory is lightning and her blood is fire caught in the heat of what she wants and what she needs. Even if her words were directed at Illusive Man, Liara spoke to her. She sees what Shepard can’t even if it’s staring her in the mirror. Shepard moves to the vanity, a perfect place to holster her jewelry. When she sits, a portrait light turns on, lining the mirror. Illusive Man sits on the couch, crosses his leg, and watches her.

Shepard begins with her necklace, a cool silver chain that stops at the top of her sternum. The latch is stubborn.

She could unlock it if she stopped thinking about everything. She left her dad when she just got him back and it’s gnawing at her. Her mom, loved by all, is paying the price for one mistake.

Her finger slips off the hook and she pulls. It’s stuck. She grumps about it and tries again. It’s frustrating trying to find peace when he makes it so…so…

No one can battle this morass without becoming the victim of overthinking. How Illusive Man brainwashed Mom into liking him. She recalls the shock of watching them hug, but then Shepard’s back in the collector ship, and she hears Joker’s words: “he knew it was a trap?” And that was when she knew he couldn’t be trusted. Then he goes into battle with her and he’s not just a corporate putz, which makes her wonder who he was before he was Cerberus. He took her arm and brought out her confidence, then told off her father, and taught her to dance. In business, he’s ruthless, and irritating. She wants to punch him in the face. Punch him in his whisky glass and then his face. But then he’s with her in person and he’s different. There’s an aura engulfing her to aspire, to be better than she is. He’s calm under gunfire as if he never left those conference calls. And when everyone is around them, he makes her feel like she is the only one there. And if she hadn’t dealt with Henry, she’d think the same about him. She doesn’t know if it’s the need to release her anger, a way to stab every sliver of hate into him, find a way to process the addlement, but she has to let something out. Maybe if she can beat herself up instead of thinking it, because physical pain is better than this crap. If she gets it out, it’ll go away, even if it’s just for what’s left of the night.

She tugs the necklace; nothing.

“Why won’t this damned thing come off!?” she roars and slams her elbows on the desk, she hides her face in her palms.

A hand rests on her shoulder, he traces her collar—she shivers. She peeks through her fingers into the mirror. Illusive Man stands behind her. He effortlessly frees the chain and leans in low, because he can’t just throw the necklace on the vanity. He clings her cheek to his, breathes her in, skims the chain down her arm, to the desk, and lets it go. It clinks with a metallic slither as it coils into itself.

He takes his time straightening out, then turns for the door. He checks the console and re-locks it. It gleams red. Shepard breaks from the stool and the frame turns off. It’s the first thing Illusive Man catches before she pins him against the door. His heart beats against her hand, she presses into him, sliding her finger up the stitching of his suit. It’s a simple path, leading to his neck, and opening the way to where she wants to be. He reads her anger brewing beneath the surface, his eyes flickering bright, then he springs his mouth onto hers, and she forgets what’s wrong. He snatches her around the waist, her back, and pulls her in, touching her, moving upward, gripping her neck until his fingers slip through her hair, and he grabs it like reins—she moans.

He grows insistent, parting her lips from each other to sink himself into her, entangling their tongues in a fight without a loser. It’s clean, precise, and hotter the longer he keeps her in his hold. She finds the closure to his jacket and unbuttons it to fondle the white shirt beneath, and pull the tails from the pants. She feels the V of his abs, and rubs her palm along the crevice, and up his sculpted back. Warmth stirs between her legs and she drags her nails down his wings. He voices pleasure with a groan—he shudders, and takes her dress. It unravels itself from the false seam at the back. Either from her will, or his knowledge, both wanted it off, and it knew it. He kicks it across the floor, and for one heavy breath, he admires the view, and she almost sees his cheeks flush. He rips off his jacket, his shirt—it’s stained with trickles of blood—and picks her up, and throws her on the couch. He kisses her, harder now, as if he’s leaving her. He does leave; he descends her body, kissing her breasts, her stomach, her hip. Shepard shakes the dizziness away, then a burst of hot sensation rolls through her, and she realizes her womanhood is on his face.

She grips his graying hair, biting back the string of curse words, until he finds the spot where she can’t hold it anymore.

“Oh shit!”

And he stays, stroking her with his tongue, invoking tremors up her arms, and suddenly she can’t feel her lips. Her eyes tingle, soon her entire face.

“Holy fuck!”

She can’t help it. She’s fallen in an abyss of nerve-melting ecstasy and it’s cushioned with white upholstery. It feels like minutes but he’s been there for longer according to the clock she briefly glimpsed before she rolled her eyes in the back of her head as he finger-teased her holes. She refuses to finish, and so soon, and admit he’s that good, that she pulls him up before he has time to wipe his face, and tastes herself on him. He grips her ass, and lifts her up, spinning her around to the vanity, planting her on the desk, and moving the chair away, where his kisses become a distraction as he unzips, kicking off his shoes, his socks--she feels the edge of his pants, then the bulge stretching the linen. He inhales.

He drops the pants. The body of fifty years looks too perfect to exist. He leans over her and pushes her into the mirror; it shocks her skin with a chill, but she’s too hot to hate it. Shepard gapes up at him when his sex touches hers, Blood hammers in her ears. He looks into her eyes and just as fast as they started, her wet slit brings him inside her, and they gasp.

He’s here and he’s real. And he’s the first person to ever make her feel alive. She was a vessel of violent tactics on the field, taking orders from one person or the other, and barking them down the chain. A husk with a title. Now, she feels the reason to fight instead of being told there is one. It used to be just solving problems but now there’s purpose. Even if this feeling dies, it’s in this moment, and she feels whole. And she doesn’t want him to stop.

A bead of sweat catches in the stubble as Illusive Man pushes himself, taking all of her. He holds her ass on the edge of the desk. He draws back, the gleam of her fluid coating him forces her eyes elsewhere. Pumping veins along his neck redden the damp skin. She finds a depression in the muscles with her mouth. He tastes salty and smells like the bar. Part of him lingers with a musky cologne, but events leading to now eroded the strength. She imagines his view of her, how he can see her curves, and her reflection moving with each thrust. She wants to see. And just as her tailbone starts to numb from the hard surface and pressure of the ride knocking the vanity against the wall over and over, Illusive Man turns her over onto her feet and her knees go weak when she sees him watching her watching him. He puts his hand around her neck and caresses her jaw where his finger meets her lower lip and she nibbles the tip. He massages her breast, and bites her shoulder before bending her over; she holds the mirror up, and moans louder than the first when he thrusts again.

Minutes become an hour, split into several changes of scenery, and positions. She’s most aware of each other when he takes her to the window, back still immune to the chill, and hoists her up as she fastens her legs around his middle. Sometimes he enjoys the drag before the push; he’s most fun when he drives it fast, and she watches the strain in his brow. She won’t blame him if he drops her but he maintains, all 170 pounds of her.

Not a corporate putz.

It empowers her want to return the favor, to show she doesn’t just take; she gives. Sex is a battle; let her have the field.

She loosens one leg and he balances out her descent; she doesn’t have to say anything as she leads him to the bed. It’s untouched, unravaged, and she plans to make it the centerpiece of the second longest night of her life. Illusive Man reaches for her when he falls back on the sheets and clamps his mouth to hers, but then breaks away when she climbs over him. He moves back, blue eyes fixed to her face, seeking words, but can’t, or won’t speak. She straddles him and panic flickers across his face. She eases onto him, she lowers herself until their noses touch, and she pushes her lips into his until everything wants to taste him, and she rocks forward, listening to the bed resist. She rocks back. Illusive Man’s breath quickens. He brings his fingers over her and they clamp gingerly around her waist. The blue ring around the platform wanes, thinking they’re going to rest. Now only the light from the city shines through, of silvery-blues and full violet. His eyes glow brighter with the room asleep. He arches and his neck lengthens. Light shifts across his body, shining the traces of moisture on his chest, trapped along the crevices where hair retains it. Heat rushes over her in waves, a warning. He must feel it too, her muscles spasming, her breath quieting, She falls forward, weakened by the approaching end, and buries herself in the crescent of his neck. His breath brushes across her ear.

“Come for me,” he says.

Fire ignites throughout her head, wafting downward, and meeting the swelling tempest below. She fights it but he’s trapped her in a wrap where she’s stopped, but he’s going, and knows where. She tries to say no and he claps a hand over her mouth—her moan whines. How dare he.

His stubble scratches her, she smells sex on his fingers, his musk mixing with the slapping of their bodies. Her mind stills and she focuses on the breath, the pressure of his grip, and how her body floats above him, like she’ll reclaim heaven if she hears him call for her one last time. One great demand. She realizes why she for all this time he rubbed her the wrong way, because it was the right way.

She liked him telling her what to do. And now she acts on it instead of being caged by a virtual conference.

“Oh my gawd,” she mumbles through his hand.

Hot billows of passion curl into her limbs, shooting tingles in her fingers, and numbing her thoughts to keep her grounded, grinding her mound against his body as he reaches the angle that sparks her revelation.

“Come for me, Shepard,” he orders.

He frees her mouth.

She looks at him before they touch brows and she bites her lip.

“Jack…” she says. “Jack!”

He impales the fire and nothing stops the eruption of the sun. He pulls out and she arches without containment, every sector of her being ignites, and she screams, sultry tears pool, and fall in the overload. Waves stagger up her body in continuous sweeps of uncontrolled gratification. She drops onto him, unfurling in the euphoria of their afterparty. Jack collapses his limbs, now a dead, clammy star, but relieved. They don’t move. Instead, she listens to his heart calm, and his body chat with itself.

At some point she must have passed out. When she comes to, the sky is a lighter violet, and the sheets lie over her. Jack stares, his arm a kickstand as he outlines her body with the other. And when she closes her eyes again, she drifts off into the deepest dream, and wishes her dream was as vibrant as her reality.


End file.
